This invention relates to coin-operated lockers, and more particularly to a rental time control system in a coin-operated locker.
The coin-operated locker serves to keep, for instance, a piece of baggage and charge a rental fee to the user, the fee being dependent on the number of days or hours for which the locker has been used (hereinafter referred to as "rental days" or "rental hours" when applicable). The rental fee can be changed by the operation of a stepping drive means with the aid of signals from a time-lapse detecting section in the locker.
In conventional coin-operated lockers which charge rental fees in accordance with the number of rental days, the change of the rental fee is carried out once a day, that is, at midnight or 00:00 hour. Accordingly, for instance a rental fee charged to a person who uses the locker from 23:00 hours today to 01:00 hour tomorrow is equal to that charged to another person who uses it from 01:00 hours today to 23:00 hours tomorrow. That is, the rental fee charging system of the conventional coin-operated locker is not always reasonable.
In order to overcome the above described difficulty of the conventional coin-operated lockers, a coin-operated locker which will charge a rental fee in accordance with the number of rental hours, that is, an overtime fee charging operating is conducted whenever a predetermined period of time has passed has been prosed.
The present invention relates to an improvement of the coin-operated locker of this type.